Clients still getting kicked from AP.

[jason_sparrow]

I think the various questions i am asking are getting lost in other threads so....

Could someone tell me why i'm seeing this...?

"wmi_peer_sta_kickout_event_handler:838 Kicking off STA *************** AID 1"

I am also seeing the above, but with AID 2 at the end.

Thanks.

[john_d]

Yeah, as the SmartRoam article says, I wouldn't set it above 2 or 3. I have mine set at 2, because empirically, 2 is the value where connectivity is so poor I'd rather have the client off wifi than on wifi.

[jason_sparrow]

I have tried adjusting the settings on the smart roam feature with the AP in the garage as this is the phone my phone likes to hang on to, and i'm now at setting 4 and its doesn't appear to make any difference at all as my phone still likes to hang in there even though the indoor AP is right above it.

Do i need to enable the Smart Road feature in the CLI first, even though i've checked what its set at and adjusted the values?

Thanks!

[bill_burns_6069]

Jason:

When it comes to selecting a smartroam value, the smartroam to "RSSI" table that you can find here:
https://support.ruckuswireless.com/answers/000002277
may help.

You should be able to view the "RSSI" values that your Ruckus sees for your client by looking at the GUI.
You may want to select a smartroam value based on what the "RSSI" value is at the point you'd like a roaming event to occur.

note: What Ruckus calls RSSI is really SNR.

note: (AFAIK) Smartroam will only "kick" a client when it transitions from an "RSSI" that's higher than your smartroam value to an "RSSI" that's lower than your smartroam value.
This is to "encourage" the client to associate w/ another AP. If it re-associates w/ the original AP and the RSSI stays lower than the smartroam value, your client won't get another "kick".

note: reported "RSSI" values naturally fluctuate, even when a client remains stationary.
If your client happens to be in a location where its "RSSI" is near the smartroam threshold, it's likely to get "kicked" repeatedly. (if it doesn't roam to another AP)
If your client is near the smartroam threshold of the 2 nearest Ruckus APs, your client is likely to get kicked back-and-forth between APs.
This is bad for connectivity and may cause the client to give up on the idea of using WiFi.

note: At least w/ zondedirectors, the smartroam value is configurable on a per-WLAN basis.
It may be possible to configure a pair of WLANS, each w/ different smartroam values so that your client devices can manually choose the SSID that give them the best roaming behavior.

Or.. You can use the Ruckus "When all else fails" technique of assigning a unique SSID to each AP, so that you can manually select the SSID of the nearest AP.

In some cases, manually selecting AP-unique SSIDs may give you a more reliable experience.
This is essentially giving up on automatic roaming behavior but sometimes it's necessary.

At least, this will be the case until Ruckus comes up w/ the idea of having their APs communicate w/ each other to determine when to "kick" a client, instead of depending on a fixed smartroam threshold.

[jason_sparrow]

Thanks Bill,

Ive just tried and roamed to the garage and back again.

My phone is still connected to the garage and, if i understand you correctly, the rssi (shown as estimated SNR if i click on the client in the web ui) is right down to 7db with a 55% packet error rate and it is still refusing to let go!!

And i have the Smart roam value set to 4 which should have kicked it off by now

Like you say, it might be better to assign a different SSID for now and see how that works.

[bill_burns_6069]

If your smartroam value is still 4, you should have gotten a "kick" at around "RSSI" 17. If you want to continue experimenting w/ this, I'd suggest getting some kind of ping utility on your phone and see if there's an interruption in connectivity when you cross the "RSSI" 17 threshold.

Alternatively, you could ping from a linux system w/ the "-a" (audible) flag set and the volume turned way up so you can hear your ping responses as you wander around your house.

Of course, you'll only roam if the other Ruckus AP is configured with the same SSID.
And if you expect to roam to a non-Ruckus AP, just don't expect that.

Most clients will always think that a ruckus beam-formed association gives it higher RSSI than a non-ruckus device, even if it's closer to the non-ruckus device and the beam-formed association is providing no (or unreliable) connectivity.

So the client will prefer a beam-formed association, even when that's not the right thing to do.